May 2016

05/26/2016

The breadth of judicially created exclusions of some inventions from patent eligibility continues to puzzle the intellectual property community. Just when does an invention that may incorporate an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon so “tie up” such subject matter that it cannot be patented? And when is enough additional content added to an invention involving such ineligible to render it patent eligible? This question, which felt fairly well resolved following a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions addressing it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has come to the fore with renewed apprehension for intellectual property stakeholders since the Supreme Court resuscitated it as a means of denying and invalidating patents in a series of decisions since 2010.

The CLEAN ENERGY PATENT GROWTH INDEX (CEPGI), published quarterly by the Cleantech Groupat Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C. provides an indication of the trend of innovative activity in the Clean Energy sector. Results from the third quarter of 2015 reveal the CEPGI to have a value of 916 granted U.S. patents, which is up 17 over the second quarter and down 124 compared to a year prior, but it is important to note that the comparable quarter (the third quarter of 2014) had the most granted clean energy patents so far. The quarterly Clean Energy Patent crown again belonged to Toyota - the winner of the first and second quarters and annual winner for 2014 - which topped new top contender Hyundai and Ford by five granted clean energy patents. Solar patents led all other technology sectors in the third quarter for the tenth quarter in a row. Runner up Fuel Cells trailed by over 110 patents.